Land of No Nation
by Cordate
Summary: Jun was always quick to show when the reward was high. Now, the bounty offered for the capture of a disgraced Prince Zuko presents the opportunity of a lifetime, but how far will she go to take it?
1. Jun Alone

**Hey there, I'm just messing around with a new concept for a story and thought I might share it. If I get enough interest I'll continue writing, so share your thoughts in a review! Thanks!**

 **Warning: This story contains mature themes that may be upsetting to some readers. If you want fluff, look elsewhere.**

It wasn't often that Jun grew tired of being alone. Usually she was just fine wandering from place to place with only Nyla as company, seeking out her bounties. The stillness of a nighttime campsite in the forest was one of her favorite things in the world. During the day, she liked riding through villages and listening to the chatter of their inhabitants, safe in the knowledge that she didn't owe them anything. Their lives were sedentary and hers was transient. She had her own way to go, and she had nothing to say to those who chose to stay rooted like trees in the dirt.

There were times, though, usually after she had just turned over a particularly nasty criminal, when Jun wished there was someone normal around to talk to. There were things she wasn't sure how to explain but couldn't keep inside, images suspended in her mind like grotesque still life portraits. The bounty she had just delivered to an Earth Kingdom fortress had been wanted for violence against his own family. He had beaten his wife unconscious and fled town with their two young children forcibly in tow. The authorities put a high price on his head, and Jun caught up to him three days later in the high desert beyond Omashu. The fight was brief – he was an earthbender, but a careless one who clearly lacked the discipline to hone his abilities. It hadn't been hard to make an opening for Nyla to paralyze him with her whip-like tongue. It wasn't until she tracked the scent of the missing children to a lonely stone hollow that Jun realized exactly what kind of scum she was dealing with. The kids were malnourished and hollow-eyed, too lethargic to even stand up. The little girl's cheeks were bruised from being slapped, and the boy's arms were bent and twisted like a pretzel. When Jun looked at them she felt a sick kind of fear that she had never experienced in combat. She didn't know how to confront something like this. Fortunately, her brief battle with the earthbender had attracted the attention of some villagers from a nearby town, and they were able to rush the kids to their healing hut while Jun trussed up her bounty and rode straight to the nearest fortress. She made sure he landed on his face when she threw him down at the feet of the jail warden. The sack of coins she received in exchange was satisfyingly heavy, but not as satisfying as seeing her prey bleed and curse as he was dragged inside the walls.

Now Jun was sitting at the top of a flight of stairs cut into the side of a cliff, leading down into a small plains village. The air was cool up here, and in the silence everything seemed far away. It wasn't until Nyla snorted near her ear that Jun awoke to the world and realized she had been sitting here for the better part of an hour, braiding and unbraiding tiny strips of hair. She smoothed her black tresses behind her shoulder and stood, clucking for Nyla to crouch in the mounting position. She climbed into the saddle and clucked again. A moment later, she felt the familiar sensation of soaring as her massive shirshu lumbered to its feet and began to descend the cliffside with admirable grace. There was no use moping around up here when evening was falling. She and Nyla had ridden hard across the desert for three days now, and Jun wanted to use some of her newly earned cash to buy them a room at an inn for the night. A soft mattress for her and a warm bed of straw for Nyla would do them both wonders.

Later that night, Jun breathed deeply as she poured water over her head in the bathtub. After checking into a modest inn and sending her clothes down to the washroom, the first thing she wanted to do was relax in a pool of heated water. This latest job had left her feeling filthy. Strangely, it wasn't the sand and mud caked over her skin that bothered her. That dirt washed off easily enough. Rather, it was the stain of her bounty that stayed with her. After seeing what he'd done to his own children…. Jun had known she had to do the responsible thing in that situation. She had to bind him and sling him onto Nyla and haul him down the desert bluffs to the Earth Kingdom fortress, where he'd be put away for a long, long time.

Still, being near him had been nauseating. Touching him felt contaminating, as if his awfulness were a disease that could be spread through physical contact. Not to mention all the garbage he'd spewed on the way down, calling her a whore, a slut, a cockless bitch, screaming that he was going to rape her to death and piss on her corpse. Well, men always said things like that when they got caught. The words themselves didn't faze her anymore. Rather, she hated how a bit of their….filth seemed to linger in the air even after she'd gotten rid of them, like a stinking miasma. Her grandmother would have called it _the bad spirit._ According to the old stories, evil people exuded an infectious aura which sickened the things and people around them. If you weren't careful, coming into contact with them could cause a bit of that dark spirit to latch onto you, disturbing your mind and withering your body. Jun knew she didn't really have a choice when it came to interacting with evil people – it was the nature of her profession as a bounty hunter. She was used to pursuing the dregs of society and witnessing the damage they left behind. Still, it was twice as bad when there were kids involved. She hated seeing their faces, so lost and uncomprehending. They had no idea why the bad things had happened to them, and she had no answers to give.

Jun pursed her lips and scrubbed her scalp roughly, soap dripping off the edge of her nose. It didn't matter, anyway. _Feeling things_ never made a bit of difference for anyone. The man would be locked up, hopefully forever. The kids would be returned to their mother and Jun supposed they would try to resume a normal life. The bruises on the little girl's cheeks would heal. So would the boy's arms, eventually. Never the same, but at least they wouldn't be broken anymore. Jun knew all too well how _that_ felt. She stayed in the bath a long time, rubbing circles on her skin with the soap until her fingers grew wrinkly. After dousing herself one last time, she stepped out of the tub and wrapped a linen towel around her slender body. Now it was just a matter of sleep, long and dreamless. Tomorrow would bring new challenges, but right now she was safe and tomorrow may as well have been a century away.


	2. Bounty

The road to Kolau was long and hot. Jun bought a woven reed hat from the innkeeper before mounting up on Nyla and riding away from the ramshackle farming village. She used it to cover her face against the dust bowling past them, thicker and thicker the further they went. This had been a drought year in the badlands, for sure. After a few miles she stopped Nyla and dismounted. Ripping a bit of cloth from her saddle blanket, Jun soaked it with water from her canteen and tied one piece over her face, the other over Nyla's sensitive nose. The dust stuck to the wet fabric and they both breathed easier.

Jun wouldn't have bothered to go all the way to a wasteland like Kolau, except for the fact that she owed someone there a debt. A few months ago, a rancher who lived in those parts had helped her treat Nyla's front paw after the shirshu was stung by a buzzard wasp. Jun didn't have anything to pay him with at the time, but he took her word that they would settle up the next time she passed through. Not many people would take a promise as collateral these days. Words were as weightless as dust, and just as quick to fly away the moment they were released. Still, that man had helped her to save Nyla. Besides, it did well for someone in her profession to always pay their debts. People were investments. She had to choose carefully which ones were worthy of her time and resources. And once she'd invested, she had to make sure she got her due in the form of information, favors, and opportunities. Even her more outrageous actions had a purpose, such as buying rounds for crowded bars or making a show of arm-wrestling beefy men. The next time she needed to hear something useful from those brutes, they'd remember how she'd kept them entertained and full of booze the week before. It always paid for itself in the end.

It took them half a day of travel before they reached the rural cabin where the rancher lived. She could tell by the dilapidated fences and dust-bowl earth that it had been a hard summer. The man was glad to see her, and even happier to see the burlap bag of coins she hoisted into his hands. He brought her into his home and his cheerful wife prepared what meager food they had with flair. It had been a long time since Jun had sat down for a meal with someone. In a strange way, it was kind of nostalgic. The relaxed conversation, rough table manners, and bawdy stories all reminded her of her childhood with her father. For the first time in a while, she actually laughed.

Afterward, as she prepared to take her leave, she asked the rancher where to find the local bar. Even the most rural communities stayed connected through a casual hub of conversation and business, and these things usually happened in taverns. She got most of the leads for her jobs from local drinking holes. The man gave her directions to a place called The Lowland Bar, and she thanked him and rode away satisfied. She may have parted with almost half of her money, but it was good to get that debt off her shoulders. She didn't like the feeling of owing anything to anyone.

/

Several hours later, Jun winced as she knocked back the last of a frothy drink that seemed to be all this tavern had to offer. She hadn't had much hope of finding good alcohol out in the wastelands, anyway. Leaning back in her seat, she slid her eyes over the peeling paint and scruffy furniture that seemed so familiar even though she'd never been here before. All dive bars had the same sort of feel to them, a gritty roughness that excited her as well as kept her on edge. She was just about to sit up and pay her tab when her wandering eyes caught sight of two vaguely familiar faces staring down at her. Jun righted herself and took a long, hard look at the poster hanging by the door. Yes, she'd remember those faces anywhere. They belonged a set of clients who had hired her for one of her most disastrous jobs in recent memory. The old man at the bottom of the page had the same tranquil expression as his real-life counterpart, and the young man above him…. Jun bit her lip to stifle a sudden laugh. It was Prince Zuko all right, the topknot and the scar proved that much, but the look on his face was far too calm to mimic anything Jun had seen in real life. He ought to be shouting, or glaring, or staring moodily into the distance. Then Jun saw the number written underneath their names and she almost fell out of her seat.

"Hey! Bartend. How long has that been there?" she called to the pot-bellied man who'd been eyeing her since she walked in.

The geezer set a half-wiped glass on the counter with a thunk. "Oh, the poster? Don't know, sweetheart, I'd say about a day or two? Some fire nation riders came through here 'round that time. From the looks of it, I guess the royals are trying to capture one of their own; ain't that somethin'?"

"The fire nation's offering all that money?" Jun slid out of her chair and walked closer to the painted notice, making sure she had read the amount correctly.

"From what I hear, it's the fire lord himself who's put out a warrant for their capture. That's what them soldiers said anyway, when they was sittin' in here barkin' orders like they was king of the world. Word has it the boy was spotted in the plains region a few days ago, so that's where they were headed. Bah! Shite tippers they were, too. Didn't leave me with hardly nothin' for my troubles-"

Jun reached up and took hold of the poster with one hand, plunging her other into the burlap sack in her pocket. In one smooth movement, she tore the notice from the wall and tossed several coins onto the counter behind her before striding out the door. She heard the barkeep scrambling to gather them into his apron before giving a surprised yelp when he looked up and realized she was gone. "Hey there, hold on, honey! Sun's goin' down, and it ain't safe for a woman to travel these parts at night! I got me a nice warm bed an' I bet you'd look real pretty in-"

Jun whistled sharply and the grey silhouette that was Nyla reared to her feet and growled in the man's direction. He fell back, gibbering in astonishment as she mounted up and folded the poster carefully into her side pocket. If Zuko had been spotted in the plains region, then that was where she could go to catch his scent. She had no idea how widely these posters had been distributed, but every bounty hunter with a set of eyes was bound to be on the trail as soon as they spotted one. Jun nudged Nyla with her heel and the shirshu bolted forward into the dusk as Jun gripped the swell of her saddle. It didn't make a bit of difference to Nyla whether it was night or day. The blind hunter didn't need light, and she could follow a scent in any kind of weather. Their partnership made them the most effective tracking team in this whole crazy world, and they were not going to fall behind now. Not when their greatest opportunity was right in front of them.


End file.
